Higher-order isospin-symmetry breaking corrections to nuclear matrix elements of superallowed $0^+\to 0^+$ Fermi $\beta$ decay of $T=1$ nuclei

TL;DR

This paper develops a shell-model formalism to include higher-order isospin-symmetry-breaking corrections in nuclear matrix elements of superallowed Fermi $eta$ decay, showing these corrections are very small and below typical theoretical uncertainties.

Contribution

The paper derives a comprehensive formalism including six terms for $elta_C$, extending previous models by accounting for higher-order corrections usually neglected.

Findings

Higher-order correction terms are about 0.001% in magnitude.

The total higher-order correction is negligible compared to typical shell-model errors.

Numerical calculations for 13 transitions confirm the small size of these corrections.

Abstract

We study the shell-model formalism to include the isospin-symmetry-breaking correction ($\delta_{C}$) to nuclear matrix element of superallowed $0^+\to 0^+$ Fermi $\beta$ decays of $T=1$ nuclei. Based on a perturbation expansion in a small quantity, such as the deviation of the overlap integral between proton and neutron radial wave functions from unity or of the transition density from its isospin-symmetry value, we derive that $\delta_C$ can be obtained as a sum of six terms, including two leading order (LO) terms, two next-to-leading order (NLO) terms, one next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) term and one next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (NNNLO) term. The first two terms have been considered in a series of shell-model calculations of Towner and Hardy as well as in the recent calculation of the present authors, while the remaining four terms are usually neglected. A numerical calculation has been carried out for 13 transitions in the $p$, $sd$ and the lower part of $pf$ shells. Our results indicate that the magnitude of the sum of all higher order terms is of the order of $10^{-3}$ %. This number is well below typical theoretical errors quantified within the shell model with Woods-Saxon radial wave functions.